II

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Snap.

It was going to be a long day, the man knew, as the pen snapped in his hands. Very long indeed; only three hours had passed since the orders of the president reached his ears, yet each minute crawled by so slow that he could only wish to scream.

It won't be long now……..it won't be…….

They phone call that morning was one he had always longed to hear; they had been the orders he had vainly begged to have, only for the men upstairs to finally listen and comply nearly two decades later. Of course, his current position allowed him to have some say over what the elephant-eared buffoon down on the Avenue, unlike before, when he was simply a lowly yes man. Now, though, he was the boss, and what he said went. Sort of. Being the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency's deputy had a few down sides to it.

*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

He nearly jumped at the sound of his desk comlink; he calmed himself down before he answered. After all, he knew what the subject was to be.

"Yes, Margot?" His deep, smooth, Bostonian-accented voice exerted outward calm as he pressed the button. "What is it?"
"Sir, a Mr. Lynx is on the phone. He says it is urgent."
"Put him through onto my personal phone."

He stood up straight and adjusted his navy blue Armani suit; for a fifty-seven year old with his job history, he had the looks and charms of men half his age. He took good care of himself, and came from a good family, and he made sure it showed. To his men, he was the local football hero, a man who could do no wrong. He was a man handsome enough to get on the cover of People, yet smart enough to graduate from MIT with double doctorates. He was a clean, spotless man with such bureaucratic zeal that could run for higher government offices and get things done. And most important of all, all of it was true. And this man had his sights on a certain office in particular; he would be announcing his bid in less than two weeks.

Of course, there were always a few wrinkles to iron out. He picked the phone up as soon as it rang.

"Arthur Callous speaking."
"Hello, sir." His whispering voice came through the receiver. "This is Sow Sage Lynx, reporting in from the field."
"Give me news, Max."
"Sir, we've got him."
"You have him?" There was a definitive tinge of excitement in Callous' voice as he spoke. "That easy?"
"Sir, I told you. The kid he's bunked with is the type that would wet his bed and sell his soul for the chance to even think of going with us."
"In other words, a stupid brat."
"Well….." There was a pause. "I wouldn't necessarily lump him into that group. He's…….a bit volatile, so to speak."
"…..
Volatile?" Callous blinked. "What the hell do you mean?"
"Trust me, sir, if he even so much as suspects that there's anything he won't like, it'll be like Godzilla in Tokyo."
"I thought that was a normal day for them," Callous gave a smooth laugh. "Look, just get them here and my men will handle them from tha-"
"Ack!" The voice on the other hand squeaked. "Look, sir, I'm sorry, but I have to go. The kid is trying to break my car windows with rocks!"

With that, there was a click, then a dial tone. With a chuckle, Callous hung the phone.

"Ah, yes……" He stretched. "This will be my lucky day indeed….."


-------------------

"WHEEEEEEEEE!"

Max looked at his partner as he drove down the highway. The poor man's face was completely pale as he changed lanes, and he looked ready to be sick. Behind them, there was insane giggling.

"I told you so, Stan." Max gave a sly grin as he crossed his arms. "There's no one like him."
"Thank God," Stan took a deep breath. "And the crux is that you're so calm about it!"
"Lets just say that I've become desensitized to the experience, Stan."
"Jesus…." Stan loosened his tie as leaves started to fall on his lap. "How long do we have in this car?"

Max gave a smirk as he turned to the back of the car. There was Calvin, who was standing on the seat behind Stan, and his stuffed tiger friend, Hobbes. Of course, Max no longer saw him as the doll that most saw him as, but rather as the perfect hybrid that could walk, talk, and act human. In that context, Hobbes was reading one of the adult magazines that Max had intentionally put in the back for his subjects' entertainment.

"Hmm!" Hobbes turned a page. "Now, these are definitely fake ones on the page 74 model. But I like the thong color - it's a burgundy-purple-type…"
"Who cares!" Calvin fingered his nose and plastered it onto the window. "Look at this! I can make gross faces at that driver over there and he can't see me through the tint! And even better, they don't fog up either! I love these windows!"
"I'm glad you're enjoying it, Calvin," Max snickered. "I guess your parents don't believe in tinted, self-cleaning windows?"
"Nyaaaaaaah!" Calvin licked the window. "Wow, they even clean themselves! This is so cool, Uncle Max! I didn't know you were a secret agent that worked for the government!"
"Yup, that's me." Max nodded. "Just don't tell your pa-"
"Hey!" Calvin bounced in between Max and Stan. "I bet you also have mechanisms in the undercarriage that shoot missiles and stuff at people like James Bond!"
"Eheheh." Stan began to sweat. "Um…."
"I wanna see them!" Calvin pointed at a blue Pinto. "Can you blow that one up? It looks like Susie Derkins' mom's car! Hey, I bet it is her car!"
"Actually, Calvin…." Max slowly and softly pushed Calvin to the back seat. "The missiles on our car are defective, and if we use them, we'll blow up and die."
"Aw, cool!" Calvin wrung his hands together. "But I thought this car couldn't be destroyed…?"
"It can be destroyed if American missiles hit it."
"But…."
"Yes?"
"…I thought everything was made in Taiwan." Calvin looked genuinely confused. "That's what dad told me….so wouldn't it not destroy the car?"

Stan gave an irritated moan at this; Max simply shrugged.

"Its not always where it was made that counts; it's the principle of who owns it," Max replied. "So technically, the missiles are American."
"….Oh." Calvin turned to Hobbes. "I hate technicalities. They always ruin the funnest parts of stuff."
"Well…" Stan looked out the window. "I guess what we're going to do is fun."
"Huh?" Hobbes looked up. "What are we going to do?"
"We're going to CIA headquarters, champ." Max looked at the speedometer. "We'll be there in about an hour."
"And we're going to do Secret Service stuff?!? WAY COOL!!!" Calvin jumped up onto the seat. He didn't notice the distant look on Hobbes' face. "Say, how long until we get to where we have our stakeout? Are we there yet?"
"Well…" Max paused. "We can't have a stakeout until you're initiated."
"They want to initiate us?!" The car turned off of the highway and onto an exit ramp. "How cool! This will be FUN!!!!"

-----------------

"Uugh!"

The car door opened with a bang, and Calvin and Hobbes both tumbled out, moaning.

"Its about time!" Calvin groaned. "I thought we were going to be in that car FOREVER!"
"Me too…" Hobbes stretched. "There just wasn't enough room in the back for me."
"Come on." Gently, Max had them both stand up. "Its time to go in. People are expecting you."

Calvin looked around, nodding his head and rubbing his chin. The building they had been taken to was impressive; it was twenty stories high, and made of a metal he had never seen a building made with before. He gave a whistle.

"This is some top-secret hideout!" He beamed at Hobbes. "What do you think, Hobbes?"

Calvin looked at the tiger, expecting a reply. Instead, Hobbes was looking at the building, his eyebrow furrowed in an expression of complete confusion and befuddlement. He almost had the innate urge to run, run away or around the building, but it escaped him as to why he suddenly wanted to run.

"Let's go!" There was someone shouting behind him. "Come on! You have to keep up with your times! Come on, HOBBES!!"
"GUH!"
"You mangy furball!" He felt Calvin poking him. "Come on! I want to be initiated!"
"……I have a bad feeling about this…."
"Huh?"


"Remember."

There was a flash of lightning across the sky, and the thunder rumbled ever over the blaring sounds and sirens. The building was enveloped in a hazy darkness, one which chilled Hobbes down to his very spine.

"Run." There was a swift, desperate pat. "Run! Get as far away as you can! They mustn't get you! RUN!!!"



"HOBBES!!!"

There was a hard pull on Hobbes' tail, and he was jerked back into reality. His eyes widened, then he blinked a few times.

"Huh….wha…..?!" He turned to Calvin. "What are you doing?!"
"Come ON!!! Calvin tried to pull him towards the building. "Why are you walking in the other direction, you mangy moron?! The spy people are over this way!"
"Hey!" Hobbes grabbed his tail away and gave a dangerous growl. "Maybe I don't want to go in there. Maybe I see a red flag popping up when I look at this building."
"WHAT?!" Calvin looked nervously at his uncle before turning back to Hobbes. "H-how could you say that?!"
"I don't like how this place looks." Hobbes' voice was still low. "Isn't that reason enough for you?"
"……No." There was dissatisfaction in Calvin's point. "And even so, what's the worst they're going to do if they don't make us spies, probe us?"
"That wasn't what I wa-"
"You sissy!" Calvin began to wave his hands. "Even that would be cool! It'd be a learning experience for spying! Where's your bravery?!?"
"….I left it at home." Hobbes went to walk back to the car. "You can go in there and have fun being probed, but as far as I…….yai…….yipe."

Hobbes had looked up to see that Uncle Max's partner had almost inconspicuously opened the flap of his suit as he had begun walking away. It was open for Hobbes to see the shiny, menacing gun in its holster. It was then that Hobbes saw that, whatever the men wanted them for, it was no innocent game.

"Going somewhere, tiger?"

Hobbes felt a surge of energy rise within him, and for one moment, a strange instinct arose from the innermost corners of his confused, scared mind. The instinct was not one of pouncing and scratching to get out of the situation, but methodical espionage and calculating murder. For one moment, Hobbes found himself pondering the many ways he could utterly incapacitate the man while still getting the gun and making the getaway with Calvin with fake IDs and passports. He kept thinking Canada, but it was too close, so his mind shifted to hopping on a plane to Tokyo before routing to Lima. There, they would be on the way to a designated, abandoned safe house in Tierra del Fuego.

"That's so cool!" Calvin, who was obviously ignoring every single warning sign that would have alerted more intelligent and observant children, was once again what brought Hobbes out of his odd line of thought. "Those doors are opening up like on Star Trek, only they are becoming transparent!"

The doors, which were actually receding on themselves, slowly opened up to reveal a great, blackened square hole. The shadows were nothing, at least not until the tall figure of a man suddenly appeared.

"…….Wow……"

He was an imposing man as he stepped out of the entrance and into the light. He was tall, with a built body like a football player. His suit was perfectly tailored to his admirably built body, with no sight of any wrinkles. He had small blue eyes, and his hair was dark with only the slightest flecks of silver. His face seemed charming, but looking closer, one could see a strange look of sobriety, almost desperation. It was a gray and silent expression that sat on the man's face, one calm, yet worried.

But all Calvin could see - or rather, was gawking at - was that the man's hair was slicked back in such a way that it was practically sculpted to his head by hair gel. To the boy, the man looked like he had gone swimming before coming to meet them. With a sudden movement, Calvin grabbed the man's leg.

"Looking carefully at the strange new specimen," Calvin began as if the man could not hear him. "Spaceman Spiff investigates the large manservant offering made to him by the Oooglankuu people…"

DANGER. The word inexplicably kept flashing from within the depths of Hobbes' mind. GET OUT OF HERE. GET OUT NOW.

"Woah! This is soft stuff!!" Calvin then looked back up at the man. "Say, is it raining in there? Your hair's all wet!"
"Calvin?" Hobbes whispered to the boy. "I don't like this guy-"
"So, are you the head of the spies and stuff? Are you going to make us spies like you did my Uncle Max?" Calvin began to pull on the man's pants. "Can we go over to Iraq or Afghanistan and shoot people? Or spy on ugly, slimy girls in a really cool car? Is that why you're recruiting us?!"

The man loomed over Calvin, looking at him with an almost disdainful look as he shook him off of his leg. Then, with an even more disdained look, he glanced over towards the agents.

"Left the CIA building two hours ago, Lynx. And I've been waiting for you for an hour. You're late." The man looked up at Max. "Is this the boy?"
"Yes, sir." Max suddenly looked nervous. "My nephew, sir."
".....Charming child." The man looked down again. "And he has...."

At the sight of Hobbes, the man's demeanor, his entire face, suddenly changed. His face was no longer gray and ashen; it suddenly lit up with a strange, almost hungry look in the eyes, almost like a mask.

".....Porcelain Tiger......"
"Huh?"

Calvin looked at Hobbes in confusion. The tiger's face was filled with fear, but it was obvious that not even Hobbes could get why he was so frightened.

"Umm......"

Hobbes instinctively stiffened more when the man suddenly bent down to his level. Looking straight into the older man's hungry eyes which now glared at him, Hobbes knew that this trip was going to turn out very poorly, just as he had suspected the moment he saw the building.

"......Agent Porcelain Tiger." There was a warmth, though not a comforting warmth, in the man's tone. "At last. Welcome home."

----------------

"There they go...."

Max watched silently as Callous led Calvin and Hobbes into the glittering building. Calvin was jumping up and down with obvious joy; Hobbes' shoulders were slumped and worried. Max's head went down as the doors, ominous and dark, reappeared in front of the three, enclosing them within the compound.

"So this is it...."
"Stan...." Max looked over at his partner worriedly. "Do you know how angry I am right now? I have to give up my nephew to him. Who knows what he'll do now that he has Porcelain Tiger back?"
"Well, maybe its not all bad...."

The chuckle in Stan's throat died at Max's glare. There was an uneasy silence after this.

".....Well...." Stan broke it once more. "Have you got the passports?"
"We leave after we report in."
"Right, right." Stan fished for some quarters. "Well, do you want to call him, or do I?"
"You call him."
"Right."
"And then, to Austrailia."
"Nice." With that, Stan walked to the car. "When you stop gawking we'll get to the pay phone, right?"
"Sure......"

Max looked at the building one last time, a look of worry set deep in his eyes. He couldn't believe what he had just done; he had given his nephew up to a man whose motives were still unclear to the world. What was worse, there was nothing he could do; that car ride would be the last time he ever saw Calvin.

"Good bye...." Max turned away from the building. "And......good luck."